Of Sacred Texts and War

[Master Hakai]

there was no love for kashmir and you guys were vocal about it as well.

we even gave you a very valid CB and you didnt take it.

 

now we have moved on, im indifferent about you guys now

 

hurry and get ZI'd smurth

NPL was never on our radars until our threads started filling up with hate from NPL, and it got irritating after a bit.

 

Now NPL is just more NpO which is not a huge improvement!

[SirWilliam]

You gave us a CB, sure, but then you ponied up and paid reparations. Greedy fucks we are!

[Margrave]

Schattenman, if I was ever a true believer instead of a general cynic, I'd say you'd betrayed the revolution you helped foster.

 

But I'm not a true believer, so I'll just say you joined the alliance of Electron Sponge and Almighty Grub; the alliance of cheap friendships and alliance killing surrender terms. So I wish confusion to you and yours, and a punishing set of reps from the Doomsphere to put you all down the ladder just a bit more. Who knows, maybe one day I'll be fortunate enough to see Polaris forced into disbanding.

 

 

It's a nice dream, anyway.

[Schattenmann]

Schattenman, if I was ever a true believer instead of a general cynic, I'd say you'd betrayed the revolution you helped foster.

But I'm not a true believer, so I'll just say you joined the alliance of Electron Sponge and Almighty Grub; the alliance of cheap friendships and alliance killing surrender terms. So I wish confusion to you and yours, and a punishing set of reps from the Doomsphere to put you all down the ladder just a bit more. Who knows, maybe one day I'll be fortunate enough to see Polaris forced into disbanding.

It's a nice dream, anyway.

While I was fighting, fighting, fighting against the system that fostered your deepest wound, you were gone, gone, gone. The world is different, damn near a century has passed, Polaris is different, and the only AA that had any respect at all for the principles I espouse still.  And where do you stand now?  Shoulder to shoulder with the alliances who put muscle behind billions in post-Karma reps in war after war of unwarranted aggression while you, an absentee, dare presume to preach my revolution to me?  You don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about.

The defense of Polaris in spite of Polaris because of the principles involved sparked the revolution you hold so dear (but had so very little to do with).  If we followed your present mindset then, Vox Populi never would have happened. 

Your inability to see the forest for the trees coupled with your flight when the going got rough make anything you have to say to me nothing more than therapy for yourself, it has not a bit of bearing on my thinking.  It is small thinking, shell-shocked, addled 2007 thinking.
 

Let it be known, if anybody attacks our friends, then those foolish enough to do so will get hit.  We don't give a !@#$ about what coalition you are in.

Then you are slaves to circumstance, unthinking lumps. It is better that you pick an ally and merge.

Edited December 1, 2014 by Schattenmann

[smurthwaite]

Then you are slaves to circumstance, unthinking lumps, and contemptible as such. It is better that you pick an ally and merge.

 

Oh sir, your sad attempts at humor are just that, sad.

[Margrave]

Then you are slaves to circumstance, unthinking lumps, and contemptible as such. It is better that you pick an ally and merge.

 

In another age you would have written a sonnet about the courage of the man who fights for his friends. Now you deride the same as idiots.

 

Were Vox Populi nations fools because they stood for the principles you espoused, even after being pounded into dust? When did honor become idiotic?

[Margrave]

While I was fighting, fighting, fighting against the system that fostered your deepest wound, you were gone, gone, gone. The world is different, damn near a century has passed, Polaris is different, and the only AA that had any respect at all for the principles I espouse still.  The defense of Polaris in spite of Polaris because of the principles involved sparked the revolution you hold so dear (but had so very little to do with), and your inability to see the forest for the trees coupled with your flight when the going got rough make anything you have to say to me nothing more than therapy for yourself, it has not a bit of bearing on my thinking.
 

 

 

(OOC: Spent that period in Afghanistan, wasn't much I could do for the revolution.)

 

It's like your blacks have become whites and your whites have become blacks. You've become the caricature of the man who lived long enough to become what he hated.

[The Dark Emperor]

have fun guys.

 

Legion make sure you ZI smurth for me

Why don't you join in! we got plenty of nukes to go around!

[Schattenmann]

 

In another age you would have written a sonnet about the courage of the man who fights for his friends. Now you deride the same as idiots.

 

Were Vox Populi nations fools because they stood for the principles you espoused, even after being pounded into dust? When did honor become idiotic?

In another age I have already written essay upon essay denouncing the man who fights for nothing but his so-called fwiends.  This mindless marching in line with shoulder-shrugging mumbles about the virtue of blind-mute friendship is the womb of the greatest misdeeds in history.  Friendship is not policy, it is not philosophy. 

Friendship, huh!  Bilrow, Tela, SAM, and all the rest were great friends of Electron Sponge, that's what made it so easy to stomp on \m/'s skull without any regard of principles.  Friendship is a Viceroy who smiles at you.  Friendship is SRA nuking Legion in support of an ally but not in support of a war, hah!  Friendship is willful ignorance.  It is cognitive dissonance, it is a sickness.

 

Honor, as I have said over and over since 2008, is a fallacy that criminals robe themselves in to dupe the simpleminded; if honor is anything that those who claim to be honorable have ever been, then it is the greatest vice on this planet, and I have never wanted anything to do with it.

 

If you want to know anything about the ideals of Vox Populi, look no further than the alliance affiliations of its founders Starfox, Doitzel, Schattenmann, Moridin--more in Polaris than anywhere.  But you are ignorant of what we (who were concerned with principles at all) believed, as you have already amply demonstrated.  Like so many, many others, you seek to co-opt a revolution, replacing your values for its own to suit your self-serving teleological ends.  You all cheered our real principles then when you were eating dirt and ash, in years since it's not so convenient or easy anymore.  I have done it, no living man has anything to say to me about Vox Populi.

 

 

There was only one post-Vox alliance which lasted beyond a few weeks, it is the one you branded a joke because you didn't like its name.

Where were you when Cult of Justitia was working to maintain one sphere on which unaligneds could be secure?

Where were you when Justitia's Cult was fighting against Pandora's Box and Doom House's wars of reps extraction?

Where were you while I was fighting Grub's moral imperialism?  Oh, whoops, I guess you probably loved that.

Where were you when the 20 nations of the only alliance that espoused Vox ideals was being squeezed for $500,000,000 in reparations for sticking to its ideals?

Where were you while MK was advancing the ideology of "Creative Annihilation"?

I know where I was, it is the same place I am today, in the desert with my ideals which you at once praise and claim I've abandoned without ever apparently knowing what even one of them was much less ever lifting a finger to effect in the world yourself.  I'm certain it is very satisfying for you to criticize me for abandoning ideals that you never once shed a bit of skin for yourself.

Why is it me alone that you can even attempt to criticize in this manner?  Because I am the only one left who adheres to the ideals.

 

I defy anyone to throw the past in my face.

 

I am very old indeed, but I have never become the monster, that is why I have but little friends.  It would have been easy, but I drink alone.

Edited December 1, 2014 by Schattenmann

[Walshington]

Schatt --

While your vehemence is engaging, the fact that you believe you are making a principled stand for the greater good does not make it so.

 

I assume the principle Polar currently fights for is self-defense -- except you entered this conflict to support your allies.  Since you clearly do not fight for friends, you must have entered in defense of Aftermath not simply because they were allies, but because doing so furthered you principles somehow.  I am not certain I would enjoy such support if it came only because I served as fulcrum for someone else's greater good, but after all, you do not lead Polar.

 

And what are you defending against?  A likely consolidation of power through reduction of yours, behind the thinnest of CB's.  That veil is likely powered by revenge -- for what, you ask?

 

In answer, one may ask where you were one year ago when NSO was being attacked by Polar, TOP and FARK for an alleged plot to "roll Polar" that never materialized and was 6 months old.  You know doubt see this as principled -- others see it as a thinly veiled consolidation of your power through the reduction of the other sphere's. The NpO TOP treaty seems to validate your choice to not fight with friends, but with allies whom are useful tools in the application of principles.

 

Not that I can blame Polar for this act -- it was likely predicated on some similar act in a lather-rinse-repeat cycle.  I know, I know -- when you wish to consolidate power, it is a principled act to promote the greater good.  When others do so, or fail to accept your greater good as greater or good, -- well, they are mealy-mouthed, or insensate lumps or whatever other intellectual insult you wish to hurl.

 

For my part, I've played your coalition warfare game, and find the greater good to be in the eye of the beholder, promulgated by saints and despots alike.  The sand castle principles at stake in coalition wars and the marriages of convenience used to leverage them do not interest me, as the tide eventually comes in.

 

I choose to shed infra for those I actually like, instead of squandering it for a coalition for  what is essentially, time after time, though it is denied by the players as it happens, a game to manipulate the power balance. If you choose to believe that this somehow pits me against the interests of Sandstorm, then I think you're overthinking it.

 

I still enjoy your posts, though -- I don't always agree, but there are often nuggets to be mined.

[Schattenmann]

Walsh,

I do not have any illusion (or disillusions) of grandeur as regards SRA vs. whoever.  Margrave's Schattenmania simply brings up soaring discussions that 90% are clueless about.

I'm not going to argue you about the Polaris-NSO war, I think you mischaracterize it, and reality (always reality!) shows you false, for we consolidated no- nor attempted to consolidate any power, simply executed a war.  But it's not my point in the first place and in either event whether you are right or wrong I agree that honor is horse!@#$ in the eye of the beholder, which is why I never had any use for it.

 

My only disagreement with you (that matters on topic) is that it is silly to argue that support of an ally is different than support of their cause, and/or of the cause that brought them to war.  Your "defense" (which is offense) is allegiance to a cause.  Your mouth cannot separate your ass from its current reality.  You might reduce your thinking to that level, but that doesn't make it so, now you're out here in the world.

 

And regardless of it all, look all of you at Walsh's example, which addresses the idea rather than the man.

Edited December 1, 2014 by Schattenmann

[Margrave]

Walsh,

I do not have any illusion (or disillusions) of grandeur as regards SRA vs. whoever.  Margrave's Schattenmania simply brings up soaring discussions that 90% are clueless about.

I'm not going to argue you about the Polaris-NSO war, I think you mischaracterize it, but it's not my point in the first place and in either event whether you are right or wrong I agree that honor is horse!@#$. 

 

My only disagreement with you (that matters on topic) is that it is silly to argue that support of an ally is different than support of their cause, and/or of the cause that brought them to war.  Your "defense" (which is offense) is allegiance to a cause.  Your mouth cannot separate your ass from its current reality.  You might reduce your thinking to that level, but that doesn't make it so, now you're out here in the world.

 

And regardless of it all, look all of you at Walsh's example, which addresses the idea rather than the man.

The egotism required to ascribe to an opponent a mental condition is of such scope that I cannot get through the humor of it to get to the nuggets of sheer arrogance.

 

As for ideas? You're arguing that by joining the war in our defense, SRA has joined the war against you, totally and completely, without equivocation. That's madness; wars are more than hyperbole launched from would be intellectual to would be intellectual supporting this or that political ideology; there are target lists to compile, aid chains to organize, orders to give. While SRA certainly can't be described as on your side, unless and until their involvement expands to include other alliances then in point of fact they aren't at war with you.Rather, they've come in to aid us, a small pool of 44 nations currently fighting 348, as brothers in arms are want to do. Such soldierly virtue is the ideal to which all who choose the sword should aspire.

[Fox Fire]

Awesome graphics.

[CodFCS]

Thank you Walsh! That is a wonderful DoW!

 

 

...us, a small pool of 44 nations currently fighting 348...

 

Kashmir is fighting the combined forces of Legion, Invicta, NADC and SUN all alone, and those alliances are not fighting anyone else but Kashmir...

 

You must be Yoda!

[Margrave]

I like how youre pretending that your point completely overrides my own, but it doesn't, try again.

[smurthwaite]

Thank you Walsh! That is a wonderful DoW!

 

 

 

Kashmir is fighting the combined forces of Legion, Invicta, NADC and SUN all alone, and those alliances are not fighting anyone else but Kashmir...

 

You must be Yoda!

 

o/ Legion

 

I hope we all have fun on the battlefield.

[Xanth]

Simply put, we fight for our own cause. If it helps or hinders a greater coalition then that is just how the chips fall.

 

Schatt you are simply a shell, a drying husk, a fading ideal from a distant past. You are as relevant now here as an 8track player or a cassette Walkman. Sure at one point you were useful and made an impact, but now you're best suited sitting on a shelf, forgotten.

[Unknown Smurf]

I think both sides have valid points. My two cents:

 

- Schatt needs to realize that SRA is not joining the coalition to support that side, but joining that coalition because Kashmir is being dog piled (look at the number of alliance Legion could have hit, instead they hit the smallest AA on that side that is already at war with 10mill+ NS). 

 

- SRA should realize that even though their intentions are true every damage they incur on their opponent is going to be used by NPO/Umb/Doomsphere to dictate terms on Polarsphere, and at the end of the day peace/history/etc. will say SRA fought for the "aggressors" (first side to declare -- I'm not making a political statement here) in the conflict. 

 

- The Legion is vastly improved militarily. In this current war the Legion is the only significant alliance on Polars side that is putting out more damage than it is taking. As for the past war, well RV said it was just NSO? Well it wasn't, it was NSO/NsO/IAA/BTA/some others and they had financial support from C&G (Not MK/Umb).. the coalition they were against had about a 300k NS advantage iirc and Legion wiped the floor with them. (But tbf the 600k IAA didn't pull its weight). 

 

- This is probably the more civil discussion I've seen on here and I applaud both sides for that. 

[Tehmina]

don't insult Xanth or else you'll the wrath of this Elesufi.

[Tehmina]

I think both sides have valid points. My two cents:
 
- Schatt needs to realize that SRA is not joining the coalition to support that side, but joining that coalition because Kashmir is being dog piled (look at the number of alliance Legion could have hit, instead they hit the smallest AA on that side that is already at war with 10mill+ NS). 
 
- SRA should realize that even though their intentions are true every damage they incur on their opponent is going to be used by NPO/Umb/Doomsphere to dictate terms on Polarsphere, and at the end of the day peace/history/etc. will say SRA fought for the "aggressors" (first side to declare -- I'm not making a political statement here) in the conflict. 
 
- The Legion is vastly improved militarily. In this current war the Legion is the only significant alliance on Polars side that is putting out more damage than it is taking. As for the past war, well RV said it was just NSO? Well it wasn't, it was NSO/NsO/IAA/BTA/some others and they had financial support from C&G (Not MK/Umb).. the coalition they were against had about a 300k NS advantage iirc and Legion wiped the floor with them. (But tbf the 600k IAA didn't pull its weight). 
 
- This is probably the more civil discussion I've seen on here and I applaud both sides for that. 

hwy wait, LSF is also pulling off well in the damage ratio..
although its true our participation s not alt all significant hehe

[Walford]

...Friendship, huh!  Bilrow, Tela, SAM, and all the rest were great friends of Electron Sponge, that's what made it so easy to stomp on \m/'s skull without any regard of principles.  Friendship is a Viceroy who smiles at you.  Friendship is SRA nuking Legion in support of an ally but not in support of a war, hah!  Friendship is willful ignorance.  It is cognitive dissonance, it is a sickness.

 

Honor, as I have said over and over since 2008, is a fallacy that criminals robe themselves in to dupe the simpleminded; if honor is anything that those who claim to be honorable have ever been, then it is the greatest vice on this planet, and I have never wanted anything to do with it.

 

If you want to know anything about the ideals of Vox Populi, look no further than the alliance affiliations of its founders Starfox, Doitzel, Schattenmann, Moridin--more in Polaris than anywhere.  But you are ignorant of what we (who were concerned with principles at all) believed, as you have already amply demonstrated.  Like so many, many others, you seek to co-opt a revolution, replacing your values for its own to suit your self-serving teleological ends.  You all cheered our real principles then when you were eating dirt and ash, in years since it's not so convenient or easy anymore.  I have done it, no living man has anything to say to me about Vox Populi...

 

...I am very old indeed, but I have never become the monster, that is why I have but little friends.  It would have been easy, but I drink alone.

I could not have penned a better description of my own position myself.

The aggressor dictatorships triumphed over the democracies in the time frame that Schattenmann is describing and the entire world is still bearing the consequences. Independent nations and small alliances find their inboxes flooded with recruitment messages, battle reports and warnings not to fight back. When an incompetent tech-raider finds himself in a real fight, he calls in his allies to defend unprovoked aggression. Many thousands have left the Planet as a result and we are told that the world is better off without them. Now the population is a quarter of what it once was.

The mechanics of how warfare is conducted on Planet Bob are not going to be interesting enough to entertain the sort of people who want to just do warz n lulz n stuff, but those who were determined to make rid the world of those who don't think like them -- or do not accept their designated fates as tech-cows and punching bags -- have succeeded in making it only appeal to that ilk.

I founded NONE and the LoFN and later joined Vox, not to stop tech-raiding or infringe upon violent thugs' right to loot as they see fit. The point was to provide a haven for independent nations/small alliances -- and exact consequences for aggression -- with the ultimate object of preventing the type of world we see today: Since the time of NONE/LoFN and Vox, we operate in a post-apocalyptic world. The independent-minded are gone or silenced. Roving gangs are fighting each other over bones, rags and rubble.

Everyone, including the victors, have suffered as a result.

[Inferno]

Walford its alive?
 

Wasen´t him in GATO?

This is funny.

I never thought NpO was a gathering of stoned sloppy cats.

[Redarmy]

don't insult Xanth or else you'll the wrath of this Elesufi.

 

 

Xanth doesn't need Elesufi 

[Dre4mwe4ver]

My only disagreement with you (that matters on topic) is that it is silly to argue that support of an ally is different than support of their cause, and/or of the cause that brought them to war.  Your "defense" (which is offense) is allegiance to a cause.  Your mouth cannot separate your ass from its current reality.  You might reduce your thinking to that level, but that doesn't make it so, now you're out here in the world.

It is just as "silly," if not more so, to suppose that you have the authority, by your definitions, to dictate the intent behind anothers' actions. When your interpretation of others' actions does not fit with the reality, while you are free to hold that interpretation and act upon it, it is not your interpretation that holds true. Does this declaration of war against an alliance of one coalition in defense of one in another act and serve as support for the latter? In its functionality, it most certainly can, I do not contest you there, but the intent and purpose of the action remains independent, as we are free to, and willing to exercise that freedom, to adjust the manner of our involvement based on our own interests, and no one else's. You claim this thinking is "reduced," but when you insist on polarizing parties into for or against and insist on binding their allegiance to coalitions, you strip away individuality and the sovereignty in favor of a mob mentality for the coalition. You dress it up to appear like more than it is by the blanket and mindless application the "causes" of each coalition, but you diminish the situation into nothing more than us vs them. And if the coalition serves their purpose, then that is most excellent for them. But if not, then you attempt to reduce them. You reduce them into something simpler. Bound into a binary, because that is easier to attempt to control. Slaves to the coalition. And when we refuse to be simplified, refuse to comply with your broken vision, you condemn us with "you might reduce your thinking," but perhaps all this reduction has left you confused as to who truly is "reduced."

And regardless of it all, look all of you at Walsh's example, which addresses the idea rather than the man.

I'm rubber you're glue...
Any more fifth graders in the audience?

The idea, indeed.

[Walshington]

I think both sides have valid points. My two cents:

 

- Schatt needs to realize that SRA is not joining the coalition to support that side, but joining that coalition because Kashmir is being dog piled (look at the number of alliance Legion could have hit, instead they hit the smallest AA on that side that is already at war with 10mill+ NS). 

 

 

And to that end, I can concede that  by coming in for Kush, at the very least, whether by design or not, we are tacitly endorsing their entry into the war. As you radiate out from that point, such support dilutes quickly -- to extrapolate that I am supporting DoDs hit on Sandstorm because I countered Legion's counter of Kashmir seems a stretch -- sort of like saying that candy bar you bought at the gas station supports terrorism because some small percentage of the money ended up in their hands via oil company profits.  While true in a binary sense, the amount is actuarial dust.